Welcome to James Hoggan author of I'm Right and You're an Idiot

This week the book promotion is on a very interesting subject: communication, public dialog, how we discuss with others. Well I believe it is incredibly interesting for a commuity like permies.com
Every day members exchange their knowledge on the most diverse subjects, and writing in a correct way, not imposing but sharing is part of our goal as members of this community. I hope we will all have questions to ask, and learn a lot from James, that has been a PR for more than forty years, having held his first press conference in 1972.

Just reading the comments section after the Mother Tree video pretty much sums up this problem. Everyone just wanted to cast blame upon something or someone in some kind of intellectual debate that doesn't solve the problem. Thanks for the link to that however! I found it very useful information. It should be taught to our children and grandchildren in my opinion.

I went to a survival course taught by Tom Brown and he related a story where, as a child, he and his brother put to the test a teaching from his grandfather/mentor. The test was simple, where they set up a scope to measure the movement of a young sapling when one of them sat next to (but not touching) the tree. They discovered that the tree moved away from or towards them, depending on what they were thinking. If they were thinking good and loving stuff towards the tree, it moved towards them. If they thought hurtful, destructive thoughts about the tree, it moved away.

Trees are sentient beings. Why would it be so difficult to think they would communicate with each other if they are sensitive to us?

Anyway, I have noticed that so much gets lost simply because of our pervasive (perverse?) nature to digress into debates of he-said-she-said and overlook the true problems we should be facing. I believe that probably one of the most constructive teachings for myself is where Paul Wheaton says to avoid all that he-said-she-said and just do it.

andy careaga wrote:Just reading the comments section after the Mother Tree video pretty much sums up this problem. Everyone just wanted to cast blame upon something or someone in some kind of intellectual debate that doesn't solve the problem. Thanks for the link to that however! I found it very useful information. It should be taught to our children and grandchildren in my opinion.

I went to a survival course taught by Tom Brown and he related a story where, as a child, he and his brother put to the test a teaching from his grandfather/mentor. The test was simple, where they set up a scope to measure the movement of a young sapling when one of them sat next to (but not touching) the tree. They discovered that the tree moved away from or towards them, depending on what they were thinking. If they were thinking good and loving stuff towards the tree, it moved towards them. If they thought hurtful, destructive thoughts about the tree, it moved away.

Trees are sentient beings. Why would it be so difficult to think they would communicate with each other if they are sensitive to us?

Anyway, I have noticed that so much gets lost simply because of our pervasive (perverse?) nature to digress into debates of he-said-she-said and overlook the true problems we should be facing. I believe that probably one of the most constructive teachings for myself is where Paul Wheaton says to avoid all that he-said-she-said and just do it.

I think I will try that Tom Brown lesson on my hike tomorrow. It makes perfect sense to me.